WEST 32ND

Emerging Actor's Director

by Brian Hughes

Michael Kang, director and co-writer of West 32nd (premiering at The Tribeca Film festival this week), is a big fan of New York City crime dramas. He sights Dog Day Afternoon and Serpico as being two of his favorites, both directed by the legendary Sidney Lumet, who has been considered for many years as an “actor’s director.” After having seen Kang’s previous work, The Motel, and now his latest feature, it becomes apparent that Kang is an “actor’s director” as well. With the help of a fine character driven script (co-written by Edmund Lee), Kang is able to concoct a crime drama that relies less on style and pyrotechnics and more on the human need of wanting to be accepted. Kang deftly molds his actors in such a way that they are not stereotypes, but human beings of life and blood.

Ambitious attorney John Kim (John Cho) has decided to take on a case, free of charge, of a teenager accused of assassinating a club manager. John works closely with the boy’s sister Lila (Grace Park) in trying to get her brother acquitted. Tensions begin to escalate when John interviews Lila’s childhood friend Mike (Jun Sung Kim), who also happens to be a gangster. Mike, suspicious at first, soon develops a friendly relationship with John, all the while luring him down into the seedy world of Little Korea. As John tries to get Mike to talk, Mike looks to take advantage of John for his own benefit, which results in a power struggle of tragic proportions.

What makes this film work is the dynamic between the two main characters: one being clean cut, baby faced and completely out of his element; the other, a ruthless killer with rugged edges trying to make it to the top of the crime syndicate. Both parts of John and Mike are played wonderfully by Cho and Kim. Kim, as the gangster, plays a confident and sizzling loose cannon who becomes vulnerable when confronted by his superiors. Cho plays up the doe faced and vulnerable attorney but confidently projects himself when faced with the challenges set before him. As the viewer, you tend to empathize with John because you get the sense he is truly trying to do the right thing in saving the boy, and that his inexperience gives him a courageous ignorance indifferent to the dangerous forces around him. Not to mention that screenwriters Kang and Lee go to great lengths in focusing on John’s inability to learn or understand the Korean language, which makes him more American than Korean. This gives John an underlining identity crisis amongst the heavy Korean community that inhabits West 32nd street. Grace Park is adequate as Lila, but doesn’t add a whole lot to the character that would make her stand out.

New York City is shot emphasizing the usual bright lights and wet streets and the film begins with the obligatory lengthy steady cam shot, but the real gems in this film lie with the exploration of character and the performances of the actors, which were the hallmark of Kang’s other film The Motel. Getting a look inside this small small stretch of midtown, with its “room salons,” neon rooms and pretty chaperons was also quite cool.

Michael Kang is a storyteller that continues to be worth our time and money.

reviewed: 2007-04-30

IMDB: West 32nd